Monday, January 19, 2009

WOOHOO!!! Down 2.2 !!!!!

That's right folks, down another 2.2! I am sooooo happy! I was worried after my mess up the other day, but I got right back on track and really worked hard to make sure that one screw up didn't define my entire week.............and IT DIDN'T! Now, I have got to make sure this next week, I stay focused the entire week. That would be nice, huh? I always seem to have at least one bump in the road, but they are little bumps, that I count anyway. I am working on the detours so I won't have to go over those bumps!!

I am slowly getting back into an exercise routine and I know that is helping. It also makes me feel better. I picked up a 50 lb. back of dog food this week, forgetting that I am not supposed to be lifting that much just yet, so that set me back a couple of days, but I worked through that as well.

On a different, yet related topic, I saw my sister this weekend. She and her husband are the type of people who are hung up on weight and obsessed with calories. She is obviously the total opposite of me. I can remember when her two year old little girl was little, her husband would nag her that she was feeding her toddler too much because she had a round little face and that chubby cheeked look. You know, like most toddlers look. By no means was this child even chubby.......just normal. Well, after seeing them this weekend, I realize I am so grateful I am dealing with my issues as opposed to theirs. Isn't that funny? I would never want to look like they do. My poor niece, who is twenty, is 5'9" and MAYBE 115 lbs. She looks terrible.......and what is so bizarre to me, they think she looks beautiful! She looks emaciated. She has NEVER looked this bad to me. She has dark circles under her eyes, her bones stick out of her clothes, and she won't eat. All she has EVERYDAY is steamed veggies. This is what my sister and her husband have instilled in her and to me it is so sad. Now, I have ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS had a weight problem. My children never did/have! I always fed them healthy stuff throughout their growing up years. Oh, my youngest loves junk food like I do, but it wasn't in my house that often (I was a "sneak" eater, so it was never around them!). This is what I don't understand about our society. There is truly a double standard....Don't you think?

My sister, in all her neurotic glory, has instilled in her daughter that fat is evil to the point that she starves herself. Now, how is that healthy. But, BUT, society agrees. The emaciated 20 year old would be considered healthy compared to the 20 year old who was fifty pounds overweight. Now, when I was 20, I was 50 lbs. overweight (hadn't got off the baby weight!! - still haven't LOL). But, I was so much healthier than she is now. I rode horses everyday, for hours at a time, and this didn't include just riding, this was exercising them, walking out the pasture to get them, brushing, saddling, etc......What I am getting at is, my 50 lbs. didn't hamper my health as much as her malnutrition does. Why can't they see that? She's a size zero. That's what matters to them. This is a girl who doesn't do anything. NOTHING. She goes to the gym with my sister (she's obsessive compulsive about the gym - but its okay to eat like a pig in her opinion as long as you go to the gym for four hours and burn it off - instead of learning how to eat), but she can't keep up with her because she is so out of shape. Now, about 20 pounds ago, I would say she was absolutely the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. Model beautiful. Not now.

It's also amazing to me how two (three actually) people can be raised by the same people and yet see the world in entirely different ways. I am so much more grounded than she is (yes, I am patting myself on the back). Don't get me wrong, I love my sister, I always will. I just don't understand her mind set. That being said, I also have two VERY DIFFERENT SONS who are so polar opposites, but that doesn't make me understand it! God definitely made each of us differently!!!

So, hopefully someone reading this may have an AHA moment and realize we ALL have body issues. Even those who think they are perfect............they just don't realize perfect, as with beauty, is in the eye of the beholder...don't you think. It's not real. My sister has gone up and down in her weight through the years....nothing I ever thought was even the least bit heavy and to me she looked her best with a little meat on her bones. The highest size (we don't discuss weight) she has been is a 10. To me, she was gorgeous then. Now, she's a 4, maybe. She looks gaunt, dehydrated, emaciated and now she's got her daughter looking that way. But, again, polar opposites. Now, if I can just be that kind to myself...right? I don't like the fat, or the way I look, so I understand where they come from perfectly well......but I don't let body image completely define me. I am afraid that is their first priority and the saddest part of all is, neither one of them is happy.

Okay, done rambling........What do some of you feel about the whole body image thing and what society deems "beautiful"? Several of you have written on this topic lately. But, why do people feel that body image, or FAT, or even the lack there of, totally defines a person? I don't guess I will totally understand that! I remember being totally "judged" when I was just 50 lbs. overweight, wonder what they are saying now!??? LOL Oh well!

9 comments:

Lynn said...

Congrats on the loss! That is great!

I just wanted to comment on the rest of your post. I think it has been so hard for young women to have a positive healthy body image. It has been a problem for some time.

Media so screws with our minds. Magazines are filled with "secrets to weight loss" as well as recipes for indulgent fattening food. Quite the mixed message we have.

I hope your niece can work through issues and know what is healthy for her.

Kimberly said...

I want to say that body image doesn't define me. But it does. It SO does. I have limited myself so much in my life because of body image. I have not tried things or reached for my dreams because of how I feel about my body and how society as a whole treats obese people. It isn't pretty, but if you are overweight there are a different set of rules in this life. Ask me how many times I've been mooed at just sitting at a bus stop waiting for the bus to come? Too many to count.

I'm working on how I perceive myself. I'm working on getting healthy and losing weight. But it is a long, slow process.

Jeff said...

Congratulations on your weight loss! I've been thinking of getting some small 1 lb. weights, that I can keep on my desk, in order to remember what each pound feels like.

I really enjoyed your post. You sister and her daughter remind me of how my mom raised me. I agree that we all have some sort of disorder going on. People are creative like that.

Skye-Lynn said...

Way to go!!! That's an awesome loss!

I completely understand where you are coming from with your sister and your niece. In fact, I had a similar conversation with my daughter this weekend about one of her friends.

This friend is so thin, it's sickening. She's 5'8" and weighs 105 pounds. Sadly though, this girl is only 14. Her goal is to be under 100 pounds.

My daughter thinks that she's making herself throw up after she eats, although she's not 100% sure. She just suspects. And this is when she actually eats. There have been several times that we have gone out to eat and she's been with us and she just refuses to eat. I've mentioned this to her mother and she didn't seem to have a problem with it. She says that's normal for her. Okay. I don't think so.

This poor girls self esteem is so low. She's always talking about how fat and ugly she is. How she hates to look in a mirror.

Honestly, she needs to eat. My goodness, you can see her bones. How her and my daughter are friends, I'll never know. They are complete opposites.

My daughter's almost 15, 5'0" and weighs about 130 pounds. She's not fat by any means, but let's just say she's thick. She has a little bitty waist and larger hips and booty. Basically, she's shaped like a Coco-Cola bottle. And proud of it!

I don't think I've ever seen anyone with higher esteem before. And I don't know where she got it from! lol Certainly not me. But hey, I am not complaining! lol

Well, the problem lies in that my daughter is getting really tired of her friend always complaining. She just can not understand how someone can not love themselves. She feels sorry for her, but feels that enough is enough.

Talk about an eye opener for me!
As I listened to my daughter, I thought to myself that maybe I need to start listening to my own advice and my daughter's, for that matter.

I am so grateful that my daughter loves herself just as she is and as much as she does. I just pray it never changes.

And hopefully, one day soon, I'll feel the same way about myself. :o)

Danielle said...

I just got up (literally, so I wouldn't be lying) and did a little dance for you! You are doing great lady!

I have a sister who is almost twelve years younger than me (same parents) and we are it. Just me and her. I developed food issues rrreeeaaaallllyyy early but hers are starting to show. They are different than mine but really starting to rear their ugly little faces. My dad is a complete narcissistic asshole and my mother has struggled with anorexia for her adult life... food issues run in families. If my mother had married a man who didn't used to brag that she looked like a barbie doll and was comfortable with her body she probably would have gone in the opposite direction and binged.

It sucks. I will not have children unless I get a pretty secure grip on my eating disorder behaviors and show some long term consistency... they can be passed on to girls AND boys.

I think there is a pretty big difference in eating too much and having an eating disorder... so, I might feel differently if it weren't so specific for me.

I find beauty in faces. All kinds. Skinny faces, fat faces, old faces, freckled faces... that is where I find human beauty. I have too many issues with body image to judge a body for beauty.

Carlos said...

hot damn, cj way to go on the loss. and for hitting the nail on the head with this post. we all have body issues, it's how we recognize and deal with them that counts.

Debby said...

Woooooooooohoooooooo on your loss! I'm flinging pixie dust all over the place here!

What the world expects me to look like is one thing. What I expect me to look like is another. The world is going to have to deal with how I want to look. I go out in public and I think I look great. They don't? Screw them. I'm clean, I smell good, my clothes are neat. Heck I don't even have wrinkles yet. I am one hot granny! I don't look like what they think I should, but I'm cool with that.

Brightcetera said...

Congratulations CJ on the loss, girl!!!

I/we would've been considered the IT girls just a few hundred years ago.
Our juicy selves would've been adored and lusted for! <3
We're probably still better off genetically if ever there was a famine! lol
I definitely let *out there* affect me *in here* and it makes me sad to feel this way.
I'm hating my body because it's deemed grotesque by society. and therefore *I* am too.
If society was ok with fat again?
I WOULD NOT BE DOING THIS! I wouldn't feel bad about being this way one bit.
So *society* is definitely influencing this weight loss thing for me.

Anonymous said...

You are doing awesome. Great job

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